Karen MacInerney - Margie Peterson 01 - Mother's Day Out

by Karen MacInerney

  I smiled at her. I had always liked Minnie; she was kind and down-to-earth, and instead of wearing Donna Karan, she dressed her pillowy body in the kind of dresses you expect to see on first-grade teachers. Today’s denim ensemble, complete with red gingham patches, seemed out of place behind the chunk of highly polished mahogany.

  “Great dress,” I said.

  “Thanks. I found it at Dress Barn the other day; I got it for half off.”

  I fingered my ragged shirt. “I may need to head down there myself.”

  Her blue eyes twinkled. “Oh, don’t you worry about that. You look fine. You’re a mom. You’re not supposed to look fancy.”

  I laughed. “Tell my husband that.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be silly. Want me to buzz him for you?”

  “Yeah. I need to talk to him for a few minutes. I know he had client meetings this morning, but I was hoping I could catch him.”

  “I think he’s back there. Let me just check.” She picked up the phone and pressed a few buttons. “Margie’s here. Can I send her back?” She listened for a moment, and hung up. “He says he’s got about fifteen minutes.”

  “Thanks, Minnie.” As I started down the hall to his office, she called after me.

  “Can you remind him to sign off on the Christmas party list for me?”

  “Christmas party? Already?”

  “I know. We sent it out in August, would you believe?”

  “It gets earlier every year,” I said. “I’ll tell him.”

  As I walked down the hall, I almost ran into Herb McEwan, one of the firm’s senior partner. As usually, he was head-to-toe Brooks Brothers. I crossed my arms reflexively over my spotty shirt.

  “Margie!” His eyes flicked up and down me. “Doing a little housework today? You really should visit Bitsy’s store sometime. She’s branching out into casual wear, did you know?”

  “I’m glad to hear it’s going well,” I said. As if I could afford any of the clothes Bitsy sold in her little boutique. All profits to charity, of course. Unlike us, the McEwans didn’t need the extra money. “Maybe I’ll stop in sometime!” I lied.

  “Good, good. I’ll tell her to look for you!” He disappeared down the hallway, leaving a whiff of expensive cologne in his wake, and I made a beeline for my husband’s office.

  Blake was sitting in his leather chair staring out the window at the view of the Capitol when I slipped through his door.

  “Hi, honey.”

  He swiveled around as I closed the door behind me. His eyes flicked up and down my ensemble, and his mouth pursed in a moue of distaste. “Nice outfit.”

  “Sorry about that. I was in a hurry this morning.”

  “Still, it’s better than the getup you had on last night. What were you doing, trolling for clients or something? And did you get the minivan back?”

  “Yes, I did.” I sucked in my breath, then let it out slowly. “I’ll probably need to borrow one of your parents’ cars for a couple of days while I get it fixed, though.”

  Now I had my husband’s attention. “What do you mean, a couple of days? How bad is the damage?”

  I shrugged. “It runs. Look, I wanted to talk to you about…”

  Blake’s chiseled face reddened. “It runs? What do you mean, it runs? Is the other guy going to cover the expense?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “It was the other guy’s fault, wasn’t it?”

  Well, not exactly. I banished thoughts of Fuji-nose and the Lone Star Delivery Truck. “I’ll get it taken care of,” I said. “But enough about me. Did your client meeting go okay?”

  “You wrecked the minivan.” He cradled his head in his hands. “I can’t believe you wrecked the minivan.”

  I took a few tentative steps forward and sat down in a chair across from him.

  He looked up at me and then glanced at his watch. “We’ll talk about this more later. That, and this ‘job’ of yours. I’ve got a client coming in ten minutes.”

  “There’s just one more thing.” I folded my arms over my chest. “I’m sorry to bother you at work, but I need to talk to you without the kids around.”

  His brow furrowed. “About what?”

  “Well, first of all, I had a conversation with Mrs. Bunn at Green Meadows this morning. She seems to think that Elsie needs to talk with a therapist.”

  “A therapist? Why?”

  “Apparently Elsie’s been acting like a dog at school lately. Licking other kids, even biting them…”

  Blake shrugged. “So? She’s five. Isn’t that normal?”

  I took a deep breath. “So Mrs. Bunn thinks we’ve got family problems, and she told me that if we don’t send Elsie to a psychologist, she’s going to expel her.”

  He leaned back and blinked at me. “Expel her? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “I wish I were.”

  He let out a sigh of exasperation. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s just keep it quiet, though. The last thing I need is rumors running around that there’s something wrong with one of the kids. Maybe I’ll see if I can fit in a phone call to Bunn, find a way to work this out.” He glanced at his watch. “Look, Margie, I hate to cut this short, but…”

  I pushed my worry about Elsie aside for a moment. “There’s one more thing.”

  “What is it?”

  Since Blake was in a hurry and there was no way to break it to him gently anyway, I decided to get it over with. “I found a dead body last night. A dead transvestite.”

  He sat up straight in his leather chair. I noticed a fleck of muffin stuck to his starched white shirt and resisted the urge to reach over and brush it off. “A dead transvestite?” His handsome face flushed a dangerous red. “Where the heck were you?”

  “A gay bar. It’s called the Rainbow Room.”

  “A gay bar? What were you doing in a gay bar?”

  “Like I said, I was on a job. Anyway, I wanted to ask you if you knew a man named Evan Maxted.”

  Blake ran his hand through his hair. “Evan Maxted?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What does that have to do with the fact that you were in a gay bar last night?”

  “Because that was the dead transvestite’s name, and our home phone number was on her cell phone.”

  A shadow of something flitted across his face as he sank back into his chair. “A dead transvestite called our house?”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure she was alive when she made the call. Anyway, do you know an Evan Maxted?”

  Blake stood up. “No, I don’t.” He sighed. “Margie, this job of yours has got to go. What’s it going to be next? Hookers? Drug runners? The Mafia?” He walked around the desk and stood behind me, his hands on my shoulders. “Look, sweetheart. I appreciate your wanting to help pay for tuition, and I know how you feel about taking a loan out on the house. But I don’t think this is the right thing. For you, for our family… for my reputation.”

  I pulled away. “Your reputation?”

  “I know, I know, that’s the least of our worries. I just don’t want you getting mixed up with all of this. It could be dangerous, and if it got out that you were hanging around in gay bars…. Look, why don’t you join the Junior League? I’ll call Herb McEwan. His wife Bitsy is president this year. I’m sure she’ll sponsor you.”

  Although I appreciated his concern for my welfare, I was annoyed to be fobbed off on the Junior League. “Blake, I don’t want to join the Junior League.”

  He put his hands up. “Fine, fine. I was just trying to help. How about volunteering at the Wildflower Center? You’re a good gardener. They could probably use the help.” He glanced at his watch again. “Look, I really have to run. We’ll talk more about this later. Did you get the cake for Mom?”

  “What cake?”

  “It’s her birthday tonight, remember?”

  I groaned. “I forgot.”

  “We’re supposed to meet them for dinner at seven.” He glanced down at my shorts. “And you might want to dress a little. We’re meeting at
Sullivan’s.”

  “Let’s just hope Nick’s over his vomiting bug.”

  “I’ll see you tonight,” he said, turning back to his desk.

  “I love you,” I said.

  “Love you too. Let me know what you find out about the minivan,” he called after me as I trudged back down the hall toward the front desk.

  When I got there, Minnie’s seat was empty, but the Christmas party list lay on her desk. I picked it up to see if I knew anyone on the invite list. I hated the annual party. Blake spent most of it schmoozing. But it helped if I had someone to talk to.

  After scanning the first page and coming up empty, I flipped through to my husband’s client list, a few pages in. I sucked in my breath, feeling like someone had hit me in the stomach with a bowling ball.

  The seventh name on the list was Evan Maxted of International Shipping Company.

  #

  My stomach was still heaving when I sank into the driver’s seat of the minivan and pulled the door shut behind me. My husband of eight years had just lied to me. Lied. I leaned my head against the steering wheel, eyes closed, fighting back the tears that seared my eyes.

  It wasn’t just that my husband had lied to me. The thing that had caused a lump the size of a grapefruit to swell in my throat was that I had had no idea he was lying. Despite the late summer heat, a chill swept through me. I sat up and gripped the steering wheel with trembling hands, sick with the feeling that the foundation of my marriage—the most solid thing in my life—was crumbling beneath me. If my husband had lied about knowing Evan Maxted, what else had he lied about during the eight years of our marriage?

  As I put the car into reverse and backed out of the parking space, the sun glanced off the tower of glass that housed my husband. I shielded my eyes from the glare. Blake had known Evan Maxted, but didn’t want me to know it. Why?

  An image of Maxted’s wig, half-torn from his shorn head, flashed through my mind as I pulled onto Congress Avenue. I drew a shaky breath. What should I do now? I had planned to get a quote on repairing the car, but now all I wanted to do was find out why my husband had lied to me about knowing Evan Maxted. The problem was, I had no idea where to start.

  #

  Fifteen minutes later, I rolled into the pitted parking lot of Peachtree Investigations. I grabbed the folder with the report and the photo of Pence and pushed through the smeared glass door, my stomach still doing somersaults.

  Peaches leaned back in her chair, the phone clamped to the side of her head, a cigarette dangling from her left hand. As I crossed the dirty carpet, she brushed an ash from her green spandex top and winked at me.

  I threw myself into the rickety wooden chair across from her. “Gotta go,” she said into the receiver. “Call you later.” She hung up the phone and swiveled around to face me. “So, how did it go last night?”

  “Not so hot.” I struggled to keep my voice steady. My life might be falling apart, but I didn’t feel like sharing that with Peaches. “It turns out Jack Emerson is gay.”

  Peaches sucked on her cigarette and exhaled a ribbon of smoke. She studied me through the gray haze. “You don’t look so good. Everything okay?”

  I swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

  “Good.” She took another puff. “I figured he was gay. Gary called this morning, said he showed up at the Rainbow Room but you told him the guy was gone.” She crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. “You think he likes the straight-looking ones, or the trannies?”

  “He was with someone who looked like a woman.”

  “Well,” she said, “guess I’ll call Angelique, then. Haven’t had a tranny lover turn her down yet.” She patted her stiff red hair. “Sounds like it was an exciting night, though. Gary told me somebody got killed down there.”

  “Yeah,” I said, my voice cracking despite my best efforts. “I was the one who found the body.”

  “You found him?” She crushed her cigarette butt in an overflowing plastic ashtray. “Jesus. Bad night. Well, don’t worry about Emerson. At least you got the Pence case wrapped up.” I handed her the folder. She opened it eagerly and studied the four-by-six picture, holding it up to the light. “Wow, you really did get him wrapped up.” She pulled a face. “Kinda wished they’d used aluminum foil. You can’t see as much that way. Anyway, this is great. Mrs. Pence’s lawyer’s gonna love you. Maybe we’ll get a bonus out of it.”

  Despite what felt like a ragged hole in my chest, I felt a faint stirring of pride. My husband might be lying to me, my kid might think she was a dog, and Attila the Bunn might be calling the Betty Ford clinic on my behalf, but at least I’d solved my first case. My shock at my husband’s lie was smoldering, turning into something else. Anger? Rage?

  I sucked in a deep breath. Put it aside, I told myself. Just figure out what to do next. My thoughts turned to Evan Maxted again. If I could track down somebody else’s errant husband, could I find out more about Maxted’s connection to Blake?

  The problem was, I didn’t have a clue where to start. I glanced around at the yellowed files stacked in untidy piles around the desk. Old case files, probably. Peachtree Investigations might not be the classiest private investigation agency out there, but it had stayed in business long enough to acquire a substantial amount of paperwork. Not to mention an impressive collection of dead doodlebugs.

  I might not know how to dig up dirt on Evan Maxted, but Peaches probably did. I watched her as she scanned the report I had typed. I didn’t feel like sharing my marital problems with a woman whose favorite textile was Spandex and who worked in an office that smelled like a tobacco factory with mold problems. But if my husband was involved with something that could put my kids at risk, what were my options?

  I took a deep breath and plunged. “I need your help, Peaches.” To my surprise, the quaver in my voice had disappeared.

  She looked up from the report, her brown eyes shrewd. “What kind of help?”

  “I need to know how you find out about somebody.”

  “Like a background check?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, it depends on who the person is. Also depends on what kind of info you’re starting with. You got an address, or a social security number?”

  I shook my head.

  “Who is this person?”

  I shrugged. “Just someone I ran into yesterday.”

  “You got a name?”

  “Yes.”

  She put the report down and tugged at a bra strap. “You just ran into this person yesterday, and suddenly you want to know all about them.”

  “Actually… it’s the person who died at the Rainbow Room. I saw something that made me think she… he… might be connected with someone I know.”

  Peaches chuckled. “Well, since the guy’s dead, I guess trailing him isn’t gonna help. Are the police involved?”

  My mind flicked to surly Detective Bunsen. “I think so. Yes.”

  She reached under her desk for a dog-eared phone book. “Well, there are a few things we can do. First, give me the guy’s name.”

  A phone book. Why hadn’t I thought of that? “Evan Maxted.”

  “Well, that’s a start. At least it’s not John Smith.” She flipped through the pages with tangerine-colored nails. “Got a pen?”

  I scrabbled through my purse and came up with a leaky Bic.

  “Okay, here it is. 501 Fourth Street, Unit 902. I think that’s those new downtown lofts. Pretty swanky address. You might want to start with neighbors… say you’re a relative or an old friend, and you’re trying to track him down.” She looked up at me and cocked an eyebrow. “You look pretty respectable. If you play your cards right, maybe one of them will let you in the place.”

  “Won’t the cops have trouble with that?”

  “Not if they don’t know. And not if you don’t leave fingerprints. Too bad he lives in an apartment building, or I’d say you could go through his trash.” I wrinkled my nose. As much as I wanted to know about Evan Maxted, I wasn’t sure I was
ready to try dumpster diving. “You know where he works?” she said.

  “I’ve got his business card.”

  “You got a business card?” Her eyes glinted. “I won’t ask how you got that, but it looks like you’re getting the hang of things already. Anyway, go to his office, talk with his coworkers… sometimes you can pretend you want to do business with the company. While you’re there, see if you can get a few minutes in his office alone.”

  “Isn’t that illegal? Like breaking and entering?”

  She winked. “Not if you don’t get caught. Besides, you’re not breaking, just entering. Now, I’ve got some free time today, it turns out. If you give me what you’ve got on this guy, I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Really?”

  “You bet.”

  I handed her the business card I had found in Maxted’s purse. She ran a copy on a wheezy Xerox machine and returned it to me.

  “How much access do you have to your friend’s stuff?”

  My friend? I was puzzled for a moment until I realized she meant my husband. “Oh. A good bit,” I said.

  “You might want to see what you can find out there, too.”

  My stomach plummeted. Investigating my husband. She was right, but that didn’t make it something I wanted to do.

  EIGHT

  Peaches was right about Evan Maxted’s address being swanky. It was one of those fifteen-story loft buildings that attempt to be both modern and ‘vintage’ simultaneously. This particular building attempted to meld the old and the new by stacking fourteen stories of mirrored glass atop a squat, brownstone base festooned with arches and curlicues. According to the big promotional sign out front, the units featured “the chic downtown lifestyle and unparalleled views of the Capitol.” The starting price was in the mid-five hundreds.

  My heart hammered in my chest as I parked my smushed minivan across the street from Maxted’s building. I was still numb from the encounter with Blake that morning, but the shock was wearing off. Replacing it was my fear of getting caught in a dead person’s apartment under false pretenses. If I even made it that far. I’d been racking my brains for twenty minutes, and I still couldn’t come up with a convincing story to tell the neighbors.